


Wake-Up Call

by NoWorries



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Death, F/M, Father Figures, Feelings Realization, One Shot, Reunions, Sad, Secret Crush, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:55:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27330823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoWorries/pseuds/NoWorries
Summary: Giles reminisces about his feelings for Buffy and how they changed over time.
Relationships: Rupert Giles/Buffy Summers
Comments: 7
Kudos: 22





	Wake-Up Call

Giles didn’t remember when it started, only how it did.

He recalled feeling impressively uneasy when being confronted with the sight and the noises of Buffy and Angel messing around behind book shelves back in his library at Sunnydale High. He even remembered noticing certain oddness about his feelings back then, because he hadn’t felt half as uncomfortable when inadvertently witnessing the same situation only with Cordelia and Xander. At first he hadn’t thought much of it, had blamed the difference on fatherly feelings for Buffy and a definite wariness of the much too old vampire with a soul.

A couple of years later when Buffy and Riley had become an item, Giles clearly remembered that _different_ feeling of uneasiness occurring much more often.

He’d go days being irritated by Riley for no good reason, found himself silently rooting for Riley to botch it up somehow and desperately wishing for him to stop touching Buffy like that in front of the whole group, and that had been when it dawned on Giles.

For the first time he’d recognized that secretly hating a girl’s boyfriend could be seen as jealousy by some. And for the first time he’d acknowledged that even the most protective father in the world wouldn’t pray for his daughter’s boyfriend to leave her when said boyfriend was fairly well-mannered and clearly right for her.

He had brushed that realization off like it was a repulsive bug on his tweed jacket. But it had kept crawling back to him, and when Buffy had come to visit by herself to share her worries about her future or her relationship, her glowing eyes meeting his own every so often, it had started buzzing as urgently as a Cicada.

Crushing it had only been a temporary fix. So had been the whiskey. Only when he’d began telling himself over and over again that it was just the loneliness mucking up his brain, and that after Olivia’s next visit he’d be magically cured of his inappropriate thoughts about Buffy, he’d finally felt at peace again. But then Olivia never came. Over the phone Giles learned that she’d settled down with a man from Florida, that she was happy, and that she’d never pass through again.

When Joyce had died, his feelings for Buffy had, too. They’d been a miserable bunch.

Giles had found himself thrown inside the cold waters of fatherhood, or at least it had felt like it. Every night he’d been standing in the Summer’s kitchen, humming The Smiths or The Doors with a wooden spoon in his hand and comforting odors rising to his nose, while Buffy and Dawn had set the table in eerie silence. He’d helped Dawn with her homework and he’d held Buffy when she cried. All of a sudden he’d become their father, and he wouldn’t allow himself to let even one wrong thought about Buffy pass through. And so, slowly, Giles had forgotten.

Up until Buffy had passed away, that was.

He’d allowed himself to grief like a lover and not like a father. He’d had no choice, because memories of her smile, her laugh and her voice kept flooding his mind and it hurt his heart.

After months had passed without her, Giles had found himself daydreaming about what could have been, saw himself reaching for her hand and in his imagination she wouldn’t pull away. She’d smile, she’d be confused, but ultimately she’d hold his hand, too.

As the days had gone on, he’d lost control of his thoughts about her. He fantasized about telling Buffy about the true nature of his feelings while, in real life, he was busy explaining basic Algebra to her little sister or while patrolling with the gang. It hadn’t mattered anymore, because Buffy wouldn’t come back, and no one would ever know anyway.

Giles remembered feeling disgusted with his life and especially with himself on the plane back to London. Xander, Tara, Willow, Anya and Dawn had all come to the airport just to bid goodbye, and he'd felt angry about it in secret, because he’d have rather finished his daydream about his first kiss with Buffy. It surely would have happened in the backroom of the Magic Shop, he had imagined.

“It’s Buffy. She’s… back.”

Giles dropped the bag of Maltesers that he’d been inspecting. The funky pop music suddenly seemed absurd, as did the sales lady glaring at him for not picking up the sweets from the floor. 

“Good Lord…”

His first thought was that Buffy hadn’t really been dead all this time, that it must have been some sort of misunderstanding, and that apparently Willow had managed to find Buffy. Then, he realized. He felt queasy, leaving Tesco. Giles didn’t ask many questions, but packed his bags instead.

On the following day Giles experienced a déjà-vu, standing in front of the Magic Shop with his hand clenched and resting against the shop door. He could hear their voices inside, quiet and abashed. He thought he heard Buffy’s voice in there, too, but he wasn’t quite sure. Perhaps it was just his imagination, and maybe ever since Willow had called him yesterday morning they’d learned that Buffy wasn’t really Buffy anymore, and they’d spent all night doing the research, and they’d been forced to kill her, and now they were trying to figure out a way to tell him.

He was out of breath. Ever since Willow’s call he hadn’t caught a breath, really. From the airport he’d headed straight for the Summer’s residence and when he’d arrived, calling her name and tearing up, she hadn’t been there. No one had been there. He’d been stupid for not checking the Magic Shop first. He’d been idiotic for breaking out in tears on the couch next to the Summer’s front door. Of course they were here.

Giles picked up his bags and opened the door, none of them noticing him or the bell at first. He knew that she was there the second he entered the store. She was extraordinary, and so was her presence.

He took a couple of steps into the room and dropped his luggage on the floor when he saw Buffy. Alive and well, or at the very least alive. Her hair looked slightly different, her body seemed slimmed down and her posture appeared very defensive, but she was living.

The group broke off as they noticed him, looking at him with fear in their eyes in spite of their cautious smiles, but Giles did not feel like scolding them at all. When Buffy came to him and put her arms around him, it was all that mattered in that moment.

Giles told her that he hadn’t dared hoping. She smiled so warmly at him that he fell in love with her all over again.


End file.
